California Advanced Primary Care Institute launched this week

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) —

Heather M. Young, associate vice chancellor for nursing at UC Davis and founding dean at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, joined more than a dozen health-care leaders in San Jose Jan. 15 to launch the California Advanced Primary Care Institute (CAPCI), a multi-pronged effort to improve the appeal of primary care as a career choice for health professionals and also elevate the performance of primary-care teams.

CAPCI emerged from a statewide consensus meeting in April 2012 led by the California Association of Physician Groups. The non-profit foundation convened its first Steering Council meeting Jan. 15. Young was appointed to the steering council.

“I am pleased to be part of this group. In order to meet the increasing demand for primary care in California, it is essential we prepare a variety of health-care professionals,” Young said. “We need nurses, physicians, physician assistants and other team members with advanced skills in understanding complex problems and generating solutions, understanding how health systems and health care works and how to improve quality, lead teams and deal with the business aspects of care.”

“Primary care is the cornerstone for all of California’s health-care delivery systems and sets the foundation for every goal of health-care reform,” said Wells Shoemaker, the medical director for the California Association of Physician Groups. “Sadly, California faces a serious erosion of primary care workforce at the same time that our state braces for a daunting bulge in chronic illnesses and the long awaited opportunity through health reform to serve millions of previously uninsured individuals and families.”

California’s primary care workforce is expected to shrink by 30 percent in the next five to eight years as a consequence of retiring professionals and fewer new clinicians choosing to work in primary care.

“If we are going to transform primary care to provide superb, patient-centered care to every Californian, we will need to fundamentally change our approach to training the people who work in primary care,” said physician Kevin Grumbach, a professor at the UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine, and member of the CAPCI executive management committee. “This new coalition represents an unprecedented partnership between practice organizations and training institutions to equip the workforce for the innovative care models that will drive excellence in primary care throughout California.”

CAPCI received start-up funding from the California HealthCare Foundation, The California Endowment, CAPG group contributions, and the California Academy of Family Practice.

About the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis The Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis was established in March 2009 through a $100 million commitment from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the nation's largest grant for nursing education. The vision of the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing is to transform health care through nursing education and research. Through nursing leadership, the school discovers knowledge to advance health, improve quality of care and health outcomes, and inform health policy. The school's first programs, a doctoral and a master's degree program, opened in fall 2010. Additional students and programs will be phased in over the next decade. The Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing is part of UC Davis Health System, an integrated, academic health system encompassing the UC Davis School of Medicine, the 619-bed-acute-care hospital and clinical services of UC Davis Medical Center and the 1000-member physician group known as the UC Davis Medical Group. For more information, visit nursing.ucdavis.edu.